


Hung Up On You

by AlamoGirl80



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Humor, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-19
Updated: 2011-08-19
Packaged: 2017-10-22 19:44:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/241849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlamoGirl80/pseuds/AlamoGirl80
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are a couple things Steve didn't count on. Missing Danny this much is one...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hung Up On You

**Author's Note:**

> Just something that was originally outlined for Merry Month of Masturbation, but never got finished. So after weeks of tweaking, leaving it alone, coming back and tweaking more, I turned this into a pining!Steve fest. I rather love pining!Steve.
> 
> Undying love to beta caliecat for comma wrangling and telling me when something didn't make sense and suggesting how to make it better!

**  
**

When Steve gets _the call_ early one Friday morning, he snaps-to the minute he recognizes the number on his cell. Before he even gets past the “Yes Sir’s,” Steve’s mind is running through all the  preparations he needs to make: his go-bag is stowed away but ready, he’s calculating how much gas he has to get to Hickam, he’ll need to get Danny to come by and check on the place…

 _Danny_. Steve can hear the Admiral’s voice but the words get garbled for a split second as his heart lurches in his throat. How does he tell Danny? _What_ does he tell Danny? Danny knows that the SEALs still own the deed on his partner, so he’s got to understand that this was bound to happen sooner or later.

Doesn’t he?

But that doesn’t dampen the uncomfortable twinge in his chest at the thought of seeing Danny’s confused, worried and probably angry face when he hears that Steve just “up and left” to do God and Country’s work.

Leaving Danny in charge of Five-0. Leaving Danny with no answers. He’s gonna be so _pissed_.

Just then, Steve realizes the line has gone quiet. Which means the Admiral either asked him a question or hung up on him and Steve still isn’t sure what the mission specs are yet.

 _Fuck_ , _fuck_ … “I’m sorry, sir?”

The older man on the other end of the line pauses before letting out an amused sigh.

“Civilian life’s made you soft, McGarrett.”

Steve rubs a hand over his face and thanks Whoever is listening that he and this Admiral go way back.

“I’ve got a job for you, Commander”

“Yes, sir. It would be an honor, sir.” Steve’s unconsciously standing at full attention now.

“It’s nothing big, just a troop there at Pearl in need of ULT training on small unit tactics and combat swimming before they head back to Coronado for Squad training. Commander Richman told me that one of the best SEALs he ever trained with was right there in Honolulu and I thought, what the hell. Stroke of luck, eh?”

Steve allows a small smile of pride.

Papers shuffle on the other end of the line. “So, can I count on you, Commander McGarrett?”

“Yes sir. I’ll make the preparations with my team.” And Steve feels the pressure lift off his soul the minute he realizes that this op wasn’t what he’d expected. He’d be stationed at Pearl, training some bubble-gummers and damn if he’s not just a little excited. It’ll be a nice change of pace from chasing leads, interviewing suspects, and listening to his partner drone on about how he didn’t do things “according to the handbook.”

“Only be a few days. Week tops,” the Admiral says.

Steve gives him the “aye, aye” and hangs up. After his next call to Commander Richman, Steve is upstairs getting his go-bag, hastily throwing some more equipment into it like a kid getting ready for summer camp, when his cell phone rings.

A huge grin splits his face. Sometimes, he thinks he and Danny have a mind meld going on.

Steve can’t help feeling really good. He’s getting to work with a SEAL team again, doesn’t have to leave the island and he doesn’t have to keep Danny in the dark about some top secret mission. Best of all, he won’t be gone from the team – yeah, okay…from _Danny_ – too long.

Yep, he’s pretty damn pleased with himself right now.

“Hey Danno!” he chirps.

“I hate you. And don’t call me that.”

 _Uh-oh_. It’s seven fucking am, how’d he managed to piss his partner off already?

“And good morning to you, too. What’s wrong?” Steve’s smile is slipping, brows furrowing as his mind races through the possibilities for the last couple of days.

He hasn’t shot anyone (though he might have threatened to). No one has shot Danny (so far).  The car is in one piece (last he checked) and he’s pretty sure he signed his name on every file in the Morgan case. 

From the tinny echo, it sounds like Danny’s in his car rummaging around. “What’s wrong? I’ll tell you what’s wrong. I’m getting in my car, on my way to get coffee before I get into the office, y’know, my usual pre-work routine…”

Steve rolls his eyes as he heads downstairs. This is ramping up to be a lovely Danny-tirade and he really would like to sit back and enjoy the ebb and flow of Danny’s words as they crash over him. When he’s alone in the solitude of his great, empty house, listening to Danny talk, rant, bitch, whatever, is relaxing.

Makes Steve feel… _wanted_ , somehow.

And, okay, yeah, maybe Steve’s getting just a tad too fond of lazily sprawling on his bed, smiling through Danny’s never ending verbal battery, letting his mind wander…

Steve stops and shakes his head. Those thoughts are heading into dangerous territory, especially since those late evening Danny-rants have been his recent jerk-off fodder. He’s got a job to do on the base, he doesn’t need this in his head right now and Danny is still talking and Steve isn’t sure what he’s being accused of until–

“ _Knife_ , Steven. Why is there a fucking _machete_ in my car? What, the grenade wasn’t enough for you Rambo, you got to put a fucking sword in my car too?” Danny’s tone has slid from “simply annoyed at his goofball partner” into the “extremely pissed off and I will _cut_ you” range now.

“Whoa, wait…knife?” Steve wracks his brain for a moment before sheepishness takes over and oh _shit_ …he’d forgotten. “Oh, yeah. Uh, sorry about that.” He hears the car door slam and the deep-throated purr of the Camaro’s engine turn over.

“Answer my question, Steven,” Danny warns.

Steve drops his go-bag near the front door before going to the fridge to dump his perishables lest he come back to a science fair growing in his fridge.

“First of all, it’s not a machete or a sword, Danny. You have a tendency to over-exaggerate, you know that?”

“ _Me_ , over-exaggerate? I work with a man who thinks grenades are a perfectly acceptable form of opening a door! _I_ over exaggerate?”

“Relax, partner,” Steve soothes, because he’s running late and kind of needs to steer Danny to the point of this conversation. “It’s a K-Bar, standard Navy issue and I stashed it in there for emergencies.”

He can hear Danny mutter, “The simple act of getting in the car with you is an emergency waiting to happen” and Steve tries not to analyze the fact that after all this time together, the insults on his sanity still sting a little.

Steve plows on. “Just stick it in my top desk drawer at the office, okay?” He hears the phone being adjusted and when Danny comes back on, his tone is like granite.

“My daughter rides in this car, Steven. My nine year old _daughter_! Stop using my car as your personal munitions storage.”

Steve really didn’t want to leave with Danny actually pissed at him and fuck, Danny’s right. Steve’s spent so long worrying about himself that having to think past his actions to consequences for third parties is still sneaking up on him.  He stops what he’s doing and rubs a hand over his forehead.

“Shit, man. I know. I’m sorry. I just…” he sighs. “I’m sorry. Won’t happen again.”

“Thank you,” Danny says.

Steve grabs up his gear and makes his way to the truck, juggling his phone on his shoulder.

“Listen, Danny, I was about to call you anyway. Admiral Kirtzman called me this morning and–”

“Oh, shit,” Danny says over him. “You’re leaving aren’t you? Off to some God awful locale a world away doing God knows what and don’t tell me, it’s _classified_ right? Great. That’s just…yeah. Awesome.”

A small smile creeps over Steve’s face when he hears the worry and affection in Danny’s voice. It’s nice to know that while he’s _sure_ he’ll miss Danny, Danny might miss him too. Warmth fills his chest and he tries not to chuckle while his irate partner mutters more curses directed at the US military.

“Actually, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be at Pearl training some SEAL recruits for about a week.”

He can hear the guarded surprise in Danny’s voice, imagining his eyebrows going up and _damn_ , he’s gonna miss this guy.

“Oh.” Danny pauses. “At Pearl, huh? Okay. Well, that’s slightly closer than I thought, but hey, you get to play War with the SEAL pups. Fun times.”

“Yeah. So, I guess it goes unsaid that you’ll be in charge.”

“Obviously.” Danny’s smirking now, Steve knows.

“I’ll be staying on base, so feel free to come by the house, check on things for me.”

“You want me to water your plants, Steve?”

And really, Danny’s tone is mocking, but it’s also low, rumbling through the receiver and maybe Steve’s brain is going a hundred different directions at once, but something about that sounded like a proposition.

If Steve’s this suggestible now, he’s going to be seriously hard up by the end of the week. In every sense of the phrase… _dammit_.  

“I…uh…no. I don’t have any plants, Danny,” Steve chokes out as he climbs into his truck.

Danny chuckles. “Yes. I’m aware of that, you dork. I was kidding. You gonna be able to call and check in?”

“Maybe. Depends on the training. Sometimes we go all night.”

“I have no doubt.”

Steve winces and shifts in his seat. This is bad. This is very _very_ bad. Bad enough he was going to miss his partner, bad enough that his partner is starting to take the lead role in his nightly fantasies, but now Steve is hearing innuendo everywhere.

“Okay,” Steve says with false cheer and to his horror, his voice cracks a little. “So, I’ll talk to you later Danno! Stay safe, man.”

“Yeah, speaking of staying safe. Don’t fall off anything or drown anyone, please,” Danny replies warmly before the line goes dead.

Steve drives to the base in record time, hoping that getting back into military training mode with a bunch of rookie SEALs will take his mind off his partner. He’s greeted by the regimented normalcy of being back amongst his own kind immediately.

After changing into a set of fatigues, Steve finds that his mind-set switches back to Lt. Commander McGarrett as easily as slipping back into an old, comfortable pair of shoes. He greets his teaching partner, the squad’s regular CO, Lieutenant Gentry, who is probably the tallest man Steve’s met in a long time. He’s at least six foot six, built like a tank, dark-skinned with a southern drawl.

The rookie team is small, only twelve of them who’ve made it this far into BUDs training. Steve remembers that his team started out with twenty five, but by the time they got to the final stages they were down to ten guys who’d refused to ring the bell. These twelve obviously had what it took to become Navy elite and Steve feels a swell of pride for the young faces standing at attention before him.

\-----------

Two days into training and Steve’s hit his stride. He likes showing the rookies the tricks of the trade, embellishing on the lessons a little and is rewarded when Gentry flashes a wicked grin, stark white teeth gleaming against dark skin every time Steve improvises some technique.

Danny would have been horrified; all frowns and “why me” looks.

Thoughts of Danny are fleeting during training hours; Steve’s simply got too many other things on his mind, not the least of which is the safety of twelve young SEALs who are currently learning to defuse bombs under fifteen feet of water.

Steve and Gentry stand pool-side, stop watches in hand, timing the six crewmen in Alpha team as they try to defuse some concoction Gentry came up with using Steve’s techniques. The explosives aren’t deadly but there will still be a small blast when the bomb goes off and suddenly, Steve can imagine Danny standing next to him, hands up in the ‘ _What the fuck! Were you dropped as a child?_ ’ gesture, demanding to know why there had to be an actual explosion in the first place.

 _“You’re trying to train them to become deadly ninja’s, right? So blowing them up during said training would be counter-intuitive, I’d think,”_ day-dream Danny says indignantly.

“Hey. Somethin’ funny, Commander?” Gentry asks.

Steve shakes his head, realizing that he’s been smirking off into the middle-distance and his imagined partner fades away.

“Uh, no. Not at all,” Steve mutters, checking his stop watch, just as the heads of Alpha Team bob to the surface.

He gives a quick nod approval to his students, but inwardly, Steve’s beaming with pride. He’d taught his team a way to bypass the bomb mechanism using some techniques not covered in the handbook and now, all he wants to do is call Danny and crow that his team diffused the bomb with a full thirty seconds spare, just so he can listen to Danny sputter and squawk about how thirty seconds is nowhere near a big enough gap when lives are at stake.

It’s starting to dawn on Steve that maybe he’s missing his partner more than he thought.

\--------

Day five arrives and Steve can tell this is going to run over that “a week, tops” timeline the Admiral gave him.

Water Combat training is in full force and Steve would be a damn liar if he said he wasn’t starting to feel his age a bit. Having three kids more than ten years his junior attacking him with gusto in chest-high water twice a day is starting to tax his muscles and even with his daily calisthenics and morning swims, he’s fucking _sore_ when he wakes up.

He’s called Danny once this week, just checking in and discovered the team in the middle of a murder-suicide case with some high-profile tourists. Danny couldn’t talk much because he was following a lead that might provide evidence that the murder-suicide was actually a murder-murder.

But _damn_ , it was good to hear his voice. Steve stole a moment during lunch to call and when Danny hung up after only five minutes, Steve had the undeniable feeling of loss in the pit of his stomach. Not that he expected Danny to drop everything to shoot the shit with him for hours, but still.

He needed more than five minutes. Hell, Steve needs to _see_ Danny. Just... be near him. How Steve manages to find himself lonely on a base with a thousand guys crammed in close quarters, he’ll never know.

But he is lonely. The next night, Steve comes back to his private room in the barracks, which is minimalist at best: a bed, desk, table and two chairs, bathroom and a tiny kitchenette he shares with Gentry next door. After eating and going over the training missions for the next day, fatigue settles over Steve like a blanket, but sleep isn’t easy to find.

Pushing out a hundred push-ups doesn’t take the edge off either, so Steve finds himself flat on his back in his bed, sweaty, shirtless and thinking about Danny. He grabs his phone, thumbs over Danny’s contact, presses ‘send’ and waits. It’s nearly midnight, but since Danny was working a case, he takes a chance that his partner is still awake.

“ ‘Lo,” comes the muffled reply.

Shit. So much for being awake, Steve thinks.

“Danny?” Steve chews his lip anxiously, hoping his partner won’t be too terribly pissed.

He hears some shuffling over the line but it sounds like papers and not bed sheets. “Steve? ‘tha hell? What time is it?”

“Almost midnight, Sleeping Beauty. Sorry about waking you,” Steve says, feeling like an ass for disturbing what little sleep Danny’s allowed during cases.

“Aw, fuck,” Danny mutters. Steve hears him rubbing his face, his stubble making scratchy noises over the phone.

“Are you at the office?”

“Yeah. I must’ve …must’ve nodded off.” Danny sounds like he’s rustling papers again on his desk and Steve is imaging him, face down, head cradled in those big forearms. Steve stretches out on top of his sheets, feeling relaxation seep into his bones at last and grins.

“I’m betting the Governor’s office will want to know why there’s a huge drool spot on your reports.”

There’s a frantic movement over the line, like Danny’s checking his files for those wet marks then, “Fuck you, Steven. And what, you don’t have enough to do blowing up SEAL recruits over there; you gotta call me at midnight?”

Steve smirks, reaching an arm back behind his head on the pillow. “I didn’t blow anyone up today, Danny. In fact, my trainees are doing very well _disarming_ bombs, thank you very much.”

“Oh goody. A whole platoon of _Steves_ to be unleashed upon the world. Hasn’t the world suffered enough being forced to endure famine, wars and _American Idol_?”

Steve chuckles, feeling warm and safe and happy now that the banter he so sorely missed has started back up. “How’s the case?”

Danny’s chair squeaks. “About to be wrapped up. Turns out it was the sister in-law who was sleeping with the husband and wanted to bump off the wife…or something like that. It sounds way too _Young and the Restless_ , but my mind has checked out for the night. Anyway, we got the killer and I was finishing up the paper work.”

Steve feels an odd mixture of pride with Danny’s leadership skills and something pin-prick-like and twisty at the realization that Danny obviously didn’t need him in this case. Steve spends a lot of his time trying not to think about Danny’s life in New Jersey because of the creeping desperation and fear that one day, Danny will have had enough of his shit and just leave, but the fact is Danny’s a damn good investigator.

And Danny would gleefully remind him that he was solving cases _before_ he met Steve and he most certainly can solve cases _without_ Steve too.

Well, that stings.

“That’s good,” Steve says finally. “Tell Chin and Kono good job for me.”

“Will do.” Danny’s moving around the room now, probably about to head home.

There’s a pause and Steve panics a little, casting about for a way to keep the conversation going. It’s only been six days but he feels like he hasn’t seen Danny in months, which is just fucking sad, really.

“So, uh, what else is going on? How’s Grace?”

Grace is a good subject. Grace will keep Danny on the line forever and Steve wracks his brain to remember if this is a Grace weekend or not. Fuck, if that case kept Danny away from his little girl…

“She’s good. She had a party this weekend at a friend’s, so I’m swapping weekends with Rachel. My Saturday has been completely Grace-less but the case has kept me busy. That’s something.”

“That’s good,” Steve says. He still needs Danny on the phone just a little longer, so he asks about the case details.

Danny sounds like he’s on his way to his car, more awake now and willing to give Steve a play-by-play of the case as he drives.

He talks about the crime scene, about the victim’s lives and the annoying, rich relatives who thought they could pull the “don’t you know who I am” thing with Danny, as if that would help the case get solved faster.

Steve just lets himself drift, like he’s done so many times before when Danny’s called him at night to rant about this and that, the flow of his words making him feel warm and content as he slips a hand under the waist band of his sweats.

“Christ, Steve, it was like trying to ask one of those vapid starlets Grace reads about in those tweeny magazines–”

Steve cracks an eye open as he runs his finger over his growing erection. “Vapid?”

“Word of the day, stop interrupting me.”

“I hate that calendar,” Steve murmurs, letting out a sigh as he works his boxer briefs down enough to free himself. He can’t think too much about how quickly just talking to Danny about casework has gotten him hard because that would be admitting how much pull his partner has over him.

And Steve knows if he ever admits that, well, Danny Williams would _own_ him.

Danny huffs a laugh. “You just hate that I have a more extensive vocabulary than you, you Neanderthal.”

With his hand slowly pumping himself, Steve closes his eyes and lets out something between a purr and a groan before he can stop himself.

“What was that?”

Steve’s eyes fly open and his hand stops. “Uh…nothing. Just sore from training today.”

“Superman is feeling his age. Wonders never cease.”

“Whatever. Go on,” Steve says, settling back into a rhythm.

Danny launches back into his case description like he’d never paused and Steve revels in the rough, weary cadence of the words and the soft tune of the radio echoing in the background as his partner drives home.

Steve’s pumping in earnest now, his body seeking that blessed release and he can feel himself at the cliffs edge now, wanting to fall. He’s doing good to utter a few encouraging “Uh huh’s” and “Yeah’s” in the right places during Danny’s one-sided conversation.

“I mean,” Danny says, “It’s not like the sister-in-law was giving off crazed-killer vibes, but she was jumpy and that could just be nerves, y’know?”

Steve replies with a soft, breathy moan.

“Steven.” Danny’s tone has shifted from conversational to suspicious. “What are you doing?”

Steve’s hips are jutting off the bed now to meet his hand and God, he’s _almost_ there.

“Yo. Earth to Steve!”

“Stretching,” Steve says between clenched teeth.

“Stretching.”

“Uh huh…”

“Okay. That’s just weird. Why are you stretching?” Danny asks. “What are you doing, some kind of Navy _yoga_ over there?”

“It’s good for those sore muscles,” Steve barely manages to grit out.

“Freak,” Danny mutters. “Who does yoga after midnight? _You_ , that’s who. Freaky SEAL mutants like you.”

Steve smiles, bliss clouding his mind as he feels the build of wonderful release in his spine.

Suddenly, Danny swears on the other end. “ _Aw_ _hell_. Is that – it is! Johnny D, lil rat bastard…”

Steve’s fore-brain catches up with Danny’s words and the sirens he hears being turned on inside the Camaro, puts two and two together, while his hind-brain screams at him to keep pumping into the tunnel of his hand.

“Wait,” Steve pants. “ _What_?”

He hears squealing tires and muffled sounds of Danny maneuvering the car into a turn.

“Johnny D – you remember Johnny D, our little kleptomaniac friend with poor geography skills? I just saw him come out of an electronics store here downtown with a bunch of merchandise I would bet my paycheck he didn’t purchase. I’ll catch ya later, man.”

And with that, the line goes abruptly silent, leaving Steve a sweaty and extremely frustrated mess. The shock of Danny’s rushed good-bye derailed his little fantasy train at a crucial moment, putting a cruel dampener on the mood.

Steve flops back against his pillow on his lumpy, government issued bed in his plain government issued room and manfully tries not to whine.

After a few minutes of creative cursing under his breath, he gathers himself and heads for a very long, very _cold_ shower.  

\---------

By day eight, Steve’s caught somewhere in the endless loop of exhaustion and over-wrought adrenaline-fed nerves. The food in the base commissary is mediocre but he’s had worse. The rigors of training keep his nerves on end all day, and each night he returns to his quarters a frustrated, anxious mess. What little sleep finds him is fitful and full of vivid dreams of trainees in ghillie suites stalking pineapple and ham pizzas and Danny’s blue, blue eyes crinkled in laughter.

Alpha and Beta teams are finishing sniper training and Steve’s spent the last three days up in the mountains going over everything from weather dynamics affecting bullet trajectory to tracking under heavy undergrowth.

After three days of bivouacking in the Koolau Range, eating rations that might have expired during the Gulf War and letting his trainees stalk him over hill and yonder, Steve’s not ashamed to admit he’s looking forward to his lumpy mattress in his lunch-box sized quarters and a long shower.

Once they make it back to base, Gentry dismisses the troops while Steve lugs his gear back his room. Two more days of range tests and he’s through; back to his own bed in his own house. Back to Five-0 and of course, back to Danny.

Missing Danny has become a dull ache that started behind Steve’s eyes but has worked its way between his ribs, settling in around his heart. He feels jittery and anxious despite the numbing weariness making his bones feel like poorly congealed jell-o. He hasn’t talked to Danny in three days and Steve is positively itching to get to his cell and the privacy of his room.

His bags hit the scarred linoleum floor with a thud as Steve enters his quarters and turns on the lights.

He’s still covered in grease camouflage paint, with mud caked on his pants and boots and his shirt is smeared with God knows what from huddling in hideouts all over the mountainside. He’s pretty sure his own personal stench could stun a horse by this point, but a shower doesn’t even top his priority list right now.

Sitting on the end of his bed, Steve turns on his cell phone and waits. As the screen boots up, he feels a giddy jump of anticipation in his gut: voice mails are waiting from him. He doesn’t even know he’s smiling until he feels his face fall upon hearing Chin’s voice and not the one he’d been missing so.

Steve’s mind wanders off to think about why Danny wouldn’t have at least called to say “Hi, you’d better return those rookies in the condition you found them or the Navy won’t give you your deposit back…” or _something_ when he hears Chin say, _“…but he’s okay, brah.”_

 _What?_ Steve shoots off the bed and nearly drops his phone trying to hit the replay button. The recording of Chin’s tired voice fills his ear again as he recounts the latest case and Steve stands ramrod straight, jaw tensing uncontrollably as sickening dread seeps into his guts.

 _“Johnny D offered us info on a local smuggling ring in exchange for a good word on that aborted electronics store heist Danny stumbled into the other night. We found the smugglers but they had more firepower than we were expecting, naturally. Opened fire on us before we could even get out of the cars. Danny took lead, but–”_

That’s it. Steve doesn’t need to hear anymore and his fingers shake a little as he thumbs the speed dial for Danny’s number. Anxious seconds stretch into an eternity while the excruciating sound of a ringing tone fills his ears. His jaw starts to ache from being clenched like a vice and then the receiver clicks and his heart leaps into his throat.

“Danny? Are you okay? What happened? Chin told me you guys took fire, are you okay? Talk to me man. _Danny_?”

There’s a pause and Steve nearly screams. He’s two seconds from grabbing his keys and breaking every land speed record to get off that base and to his partner’s side when–

“Is it my turn to speak now?”

Danny sounds like ten miles of bad road, probably looks it too, but his voice is strong, colored with amusement and maybe a little shock at Steve’s outburst.

Steve deflates, landing hard on the edge of his bed and runs a hand through his mussed hair. “Jesus fucking _Christ_ man, don’t _do_ that to me.”

There’s the sound of a door opening and closing and keys dropping onto a counter. Steve assumes Danny’s just getting home.

“Are you okay?” Danny asks.

“I asked you first.”

“Mature as always. Yes, Steven. I’m fine. I see Chin has called you already. Tattletale.”

Steve scrubs his hands over the week’s worth of stubble on his face. Jesus, he needs to shave. “What, you weren’t going to tell me?”

“Of course I was going to tell you, Steve, don’t I always keep you informed of your team’s well-being? What kind of partner would I be?” Danny says, and it sounds like he’s rummaging in a refrigerator.

Steve sighs. “The kind of partner who is skirting around the issue like a pro. Now answer me – _are_ _you_ _okay_?”

It sounds like Danny’s smiling now. “ _Bossy_. I told you I’m fine. Not a scratch. And personally, I’ll take simply getting shot at over actually getting shot, which seems to happen only when _you_ are around, my friend.”

Steve’s mind stumbles over the biting pinch in his chest at Danny’s seemingly innocent jab. It’s not like it’s the first time Danny’s brought that up, but he can’t help but think if he’d been there, maybe he’d have anticipated the ambush sooner. He also can’t help but think that maybe Danny’s right.

“Shit, man. I’m sorry,” Danny’s tone is soft with remorse. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like that. You’re out training little Steve-clones to save the world and I shouldn’t–”

Steve finds his voice, which is a little hoarse. “No, it's okay, D. You’re right. I should have been there.”

“Look. It was nothing me and Chin and Kono couldn’t handle, Superman. Despite what you may think, you can’t be everywhere at once.”

“Are they okay?”

“Yes,” Danny says. “No one was hurt and we got the bad guys. Score one for the heroes.”

“Sorry, Danny,” Steve says, suddenly feeling miserable and angry and keyed-up all at once. “I should have been there to help you and Chin go over the intel, maybe you could have avoided the–”

“Are you serious? Stop, Steven. Just stop,” Danny cuts in. “What part of ‘everyone is okay’ don’t you get? You’re talking like we aren’t cops who are trained to get shot at by thugs. Like we don’t know how to deal with escalating situations and manage to come out in one piece.”

Steve flops back on his shitty mattress, feeling the scratch of the mud caked in his shirt against every scrape and cut he’d earned crawling through the underbrush. The crushing weight on his chest has lifted, leaving behind a dull ache of relief.

“I know, I know, okay? I was just – all I knew from Chin’s message was that a fire-fight had gone down with you guys in the middle of it and I'm–”

“–an honest to fucking God American hero who has serious control issues,” Danny finishes with a yawn.

Steve chuckles and raises up enough to yank his filthy shirt over his head. A quick glance down at his chest confirms that he looks like he fell down the mountainside instead of running strategic ops and sniper training, but for the first time since he got back, he doesn’t ache. Danny is on the other end of the line, opening a door or something while drinking his beer and Steve can hear the ocean over the receiver.

“I’m just glad you’re okay, man.” Steve settles back again, one hand idly rubbing a bruise forming under his ribs.

There is the rustling of clothes on the other end, and Danny grunting softly as it sounds like he’s sitting down. “Well, thank you, partner. Although I am way too fucking old to go diving behind packing crates, I’ll tell you that.”

“Your knee?”

“Knee, back, shoulder. Take your pick. I’m a mosaic of soreness right now.” Danny settles with a sigh and the sound of the waves seems louder. It lulls Steve’s senses, soothing his keyed-up nerves and somehow hearing it with Danny, even over the phone, relaxes him.

He wishes so badly he could listen to the ocean with Danny right now…in person.

It nearly startles Steve when Danny’s voice cuts in on his thoughts again. “So how was your day, dear?”

He tells his partner about the sniper training, bivouacking in the mountains for three nights and teaching his recruits to hunt and avoid being hunted. Danny ‘hmms’ in the right places, asks Steve to stop using military acronyms in others.

“I bet you smell like a yak,” Danny says, his tone mellow from the beer and fatigue. “Probably look like one too, by now.”

Steve absently scratches at his stubble and contemplates his appearance. Danny’s probably right. “Saving the world is a smelly job, partner. Unlike you, I don’t want to deplete the ozone layer using two cans of hairspray everyday to get my hair like _that_.”

“Hey, ease off the hair, buddy.”

Steve grins, pulls a pillow behind his head and stretches his stiff muscles. Danny mutters something about how “damn fine his hair is” and it’s a deep rumbling sound against the crashing of the waves in the background. Steve trails a hand down to his pants, meaning to undo the zipper because, well…he is back in the barracks and he’s had a long few days of Danny-less conversation. He deserves a little relaxation…when something occurs to him.

Danny’s apartment doesn’t have an ocean view.

“Hey Danno?”

“Technically only my daughter has exclusive rights to use that nickname, you know.”

“Whatever. Where are you?”

“What do you mean, where am I?” Danny asks.

“I hear the ocean,” Steve says.

“We’re on an island, goof. Chances are, there’s ocean to be had around here.”

Steve smirks and rolls his eyes because he’s got a pretty good idea where Danny is currently sprawled.

“Your apartment doesn’t have an ocean view, though.”

Danny sighs. “Okay, fine. I’m at your house. Y’know, watering your plants and all that shit.”

Steve suppresses the bark of laughter that threatens to jump out of him and smiles so hard his face hurts.

“I don’t have any plants.”

“No and you should think about getting some. Liven this place up a little. It needs some color. Also, your couch is more comfortable than mine, but these throw pillows are lumpy. They’re killing my neck. I’m about to throw them out in the ocean over here and save you the time in getting rid of them....”

Danny goes on to give Steve more _Good Housekeeping_ advice but the words flow over Steve with little meaning.

Danny’s in his house. Probably been sleeping there for a while since Steve’s been gone. Warmth spreads through his body at the thought that maybe, just maybe for all that he’s been painfully missing Danny – Danny might be missing him too.

The thought of his partner coming back to his house at night, coming home (because it could be his home too, if he’d let Steve make the offer) and sleeping on Steve’s couch, amongst Steve’s things… it’s… more than Steve could have hoped for.

And now there is a real and definite need to get his cargo fatigues off because the thought of Danny sprawled on his couch, open shirt and tie-less has gone straight to his crotch, reminding him of that _relaxation_ he’s so desperately needed the last week and a half. 

Danny’s still rattling off a list of things Steve should do to make his house look more bachelor-chic and not so much of a “living space stuck in a time-warp” and Steve is absolutely soaking up all the Danny-ness via osmosis over the phone, finding a rhythm with his hand that sets his nerve endings on fire.

Steve tries to regulate his breathing, less moans and grunts over the phone this time because “yoga stretching” isn’t gonna cut it again, when he realizes the other end of the line is suspiciously quiet.

Danny’s rant had trickled off in the last few moments but Steve’s sure he at least made it _sound_ like he was listening.

“Danny?” Steve breathes, trying not to break his rhythm.

Nothing. Steve’s body is screaming at him not to stop, but the part of his brain that is always looking for a threat, day or night, is starting to worry.

“Danny, you there?”

Steve frowns and leans into the cell phone cradled in his free hand. Over the soft rush of the waves he hears a different soft sound.

Light snoring.

Steve lets out a pained grunt that sounds distressingly like a whine and falls back against his pillow, because he was _right_ _there_ , so damn close. Before, Danny had hung up, abruptly pouring cold water on Steve’s blissful high but this is worse.

It's insulting is what it is. A cruel blow to a guy’s ego. _Now_ , of all times, Danny has to _talk_ himself to sleep.

As he hauls himself up off the bed and into an icy shower Steve decides that he really hates the irony in this situation.

But on the bright side, he’s going home in two days and he’ll be able to make damn sure that Danny can’t hang up or fall asleep on him again.

 

  
**END**   



End file.
